


Love All

by YennaWang



Series: Tumblr Requests [32]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Athlete!Korra, Doctor!Asami, F/F, Fluff, Oneshot, slow burn for a one shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 01:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13494162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YennaWang/pseuds/YennaWang
Summary: Request: Perhaps, you could have Asami as physiotherapist, and Korra being a professional athlete (a soccer player like you've already wrote about) is suffering from a serious injury that could possibly end her career (Kinda like how she felt like she lost her role as the avatar after being poisoned by Zaheer). I'd love to see Korra being her grumpy ass, stubborn self while Asami is being patient with her because she's such a fucking goddess.Korra's not a soccer player for this fic. But the title is a hint to what sport she does play. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. It's more of a slow burn, angsty fic, but Korrasami is obviously endgame.





	Love All

You worry your lower lip as you walk up to the front desk. Instantly the older woman breaks into a wide smile and her soft voice greets you.

“How can I help you?”

“I have a ten o’clock appointment.”

“What’s your last name, Sweetie?”

“Varney.”

The woman types your name into the system.

“Found you. We’ve got a couple pages of paperwork we need you to fill out. Are you capable of doing that or do you need assistance?” she asks, eyeing your arm that was in a sling.

“I can manage.”

“Okay.” The woman clips the papers onto a clipboard and hands you it along with a pen. “The doctor will be out soon to get you.”

“Thank you.”

You find a seat in the corner and balance the clipboard on your lap. Although you’re right handed, you hold the pen in your left hand and write with that. You roll your eyes as you take in the awful penmanship. At least it was legible. The last thing you really wanted was someone asking you the questions and then having to write for you. You were capable enough on your own.

You were just finishing up the last question when you hear your name called out. You quickly check the ‘no’ box and then lift your head. Your eyes meet the greenest eyes you’ve ever seen before. You’d never known that someone could honestly have such green eyes, but she does. The doctor is tall, with dark hair pulled into a high ponytail. Her makeup is simple, except for her dark red lipstick. Under her lab coat she's wearing a black shirt and dark jeans.

“Korra?” she asks again, drawing you out of your daze.

“That’s me.”

"I can take that," she says, taking the clipboard from you. She then holds her free hand out to you. “I’m Doctor Sato. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Korra,” you say as you take her hand awkwardly with your left hand and shake it.

She laughs softly. “Sorry I wasn’t thinking,” she says as she lets go of your hand. “Follow me and we can get started.”

“Okay.”

She leads you through the doors and then down a corridor. You pass people sitting at desks and empty rooms, until she leads you into one of them. It’s not the stereotypical examination room because you’re here for physical therapy. There’s still the examination table, but the room is larger and there’s exercise supplies. There’s weights and exercise balls. Elastics and muscle rollers. There’s even an electric muscle stimulator sitting in the corner of the room.

The doctor motions for you to take a seat on the table, which you do. She then grabs the rolling lab stool that’s in the room and takes a seat across from you.

“So you had surgery four weeks ago because of rotator cuff tears?” she asks you even though she’s looking at your file.

“That’s correct.”

“And how did you get that injury?”

“Um, well I’m a professional tennis player. And I guess I pushed myself too much.”

Doctor Sato looks up from the file she’s holding. “You tore two of the tendons completely, that doesn’t just happen. You had to have been in pain before that.”

“I guess.” You rub the back of your neck with your left hand. “It wasn’t really bad so I didn’t think it was a problem.”

“Hmm, so you waited and allowed your tendons to deteriorate, making you more vulnerable to a tear.”

“I mean, I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Sorry, I’m just thinking aloud. I need to know the full extent of your injury and surgery to figure out what to plan for your rehabilitation,” Doctor Sato explains. “What happened to cause the tendons to tear?”

“I was close to the net, pressuring my opponent. She ended up getting a good spike on me, but when I tried to return it, my shoulder gave out as soon as the ball hit my racket. I guess the force of everything was the last straw for my shoulder,” you describe, recalling how much pain seared through your shoulder and down your arm at that moment. You’d cried out loud, the cry even louder due to the silence of the audience watching the match.

“I’m sorry that happened to you.” Doctor Sato stood up and stepped closer to you. “Do you mind if I take a look?”

“Go ahead, Doc.”

She slides the sling from your arm, her touch careful and precise. She raises the sleeve of your t-shirt and takes a closer look at your shoulder. There’s a scar from the incision made during surgery, a couple of centimeters long. Her cold fingers trace over it, causing a shiver to go down your spine. She presses into your shoulder softly and then removes her hand.

“You needed a tendon transfer, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm, the surgeon seems to have done a good job. It’s healed well.”

“That’s good.”

“It is. We can start some passive exercises today. Have you been to physical therapy before?”

You shake your head. “I’ve never had any major injuries until this.”

“Okay. So the idea is that we want to gradually strengthen the tendons and muscles. This means that we need to start off slow and with exercises that may seem silly and pointless, but definitely are not. It’s a slow process, but if you’re committed to truly recovering, then it should be easy.”

You nod.

“Great. We’ll start off with the pendulum exercise. If you could stand, please.”

You stand and watch as she places her left hand onto the examination table. She bends at her hips slightly. She then hangs her arm loosely. 

“You’re going to take this position and use your body to initiate movement, forward and backwards.” The doctor demonstrates as she speaks. “After that, you’re going to move it into a circular motion.” Again she shows you and then stands straight. “So we gauge how far you should take the movement by how much pain you experience. That’s called an ‘endpoint.’ Our goal is to gradually move the endpoint so that your motions can be more extensive. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So copy what I just showed you and try to use your body to initiate a back and forth movement with your arm. I’ll guide you if needed.”

You copy what she had shown you and grit your teeth when a slight pain fills your shoulder. You feel her hand on the small of your back and then on your shoulder.

“Not too much. Small movements,” Doctor Sato instructs. “Good. How does it feel?”

“It hurts a little, not much though.”

“On a scale one to ten, ten being the worst.”

“Two.”

“Okay. Keep that up then.” 

Her hand leaves your back and you release a breath you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding. You keep moving your arm until her voice breaks the silence.

“Well done. Now try moving it in a circular motion.” Again her hand went to the small of your back and she watched you arm closely. “Good. Pain?”

“Two still.”

“Okay.”

You continue to do the exercise until she tells you to stop. She then instructs you to sit back down, which you do. 

“So next are shoulder shrugs, which is pretty self explanatory. You just need to place your palms flat on the table and then shrug your shoulder straight up. Don’t push yourself too hard. Right when you feel a little pain, come back down.”

You do as she tells you and she nods. 

“That looks good. Pain?” she checks again.

“Two.”

She looks at you for a moment and then nods. After doing about twenty shrugs she motions for you to stop.

“Easy enough, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Shoulder blade pinches are the next exercise. You need to pinch your shoulder blades backwards and together.” She turns around and removes her doctor’s coat off her shoulders so that only the thin black long sleeve shirt she’s wearing covers her. She then demonstrates for you. “Got it?” she asks as she turns around and fixes her coat back into place.

“Yeah.”

You start doing as she showed. She walks around the table so that she can see your back. She then places her hand on your upper back and you stop. 

“Keep going, I need to make sure you’re doing it correctly.”

You don’t say anything and just go back to doing the exercise.

“Pinch a little less. It’s clear that this exercise is hurting more than the others. Right?”

“Um, yeah. Maybe around a four. How’d you know?”

“Just comes with experience.” She keeps her hand on your back and you don’t pinch as much, lowering the amount of pain in your shoulder. “Better.”

She goes over three more exercises with you and then she takes a seat back on the stool. You wipe the sweat off your brow with the back of your hand. It frustrates you that these simple exercises had caused you to exert yourself. You had even felt short of breath a couple of times during one of the harder exercises, an exercise where you just lifted her arm as you were lying down. And it wasn’t like you did it on your own, the whole time Doctor Sato’s hands had been on your arm, supporting and guiding you.

“How do you feel?”

“Like this sucks,” you sigh. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She laughs softly. “No, I understand. These are such basic exercises that it can be frustrating to have to do them. You just have to stick with it so that you can get better.”

“Do you think I’ll be able to play again? The doctors had said that it wasn’t guaranteed.”

“If you work hard you can. It’s going to take commitment and complete adherence of the exercises and timelines that we set. You can’t push yourself or you may get hurt again.”

“How long do you think it’ll take?”

“It’s different for everyone, but at least four months to get back to a more normal range. I think it’ll take a bit longer for you since it was a severe injury. Also you need to get to a point, more than normal since you’re an athlete.”

“That’s a long time.”

“It’ll go by faster than you think,” the doctor tries to say, being more positive.

“Hmm, well is that it for today?”

“Yes. I have a print out of the exercises we’ve done today. You need to do them every other day so that you get some recovery time. You don’t need your sling on as often, but keep your arm movement to a minimum still, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll evaluate your progress next week then. It was nice meeting you, Korra.”

“You as well, Doctor Sato.”

* * *

“Korra?”

You lift your head and smile at the doctor. It’d been three weeks so far and supposedly you’d be getting new exercises today if she saw fit. 

“Hi,” you greet as she starts leading you to the usual room.

“How are you doing today?”

“Good,” you answer automatically. Even if you weren’t having a good day, you’d still tell her it was. Honestly, any day you came here was nice though. She had this patient, calming aura around her that seemed to seep into you.

“Great.” She looks at the notes she had taken last session and then looks back to you. “I’m going to watch you do the exercises that you’ve had assigned and then we’ll see if you should move on to the next ones, okay?”

You nod and start going through the motions. They were much easier for you, still causing a bit of pain if you pushed to much, but that was seldom. When you were done, the doctor examined your shoulder and let out a soft hum.

“You need another week.”

“What?” you say quickly out of surprise. You’d been sure that your shoulder was good enough to move on.

“You still have pain at times, you grimaced when you were doing the behind-the-back internal rotation and it didn’t seem like you were pushing yourself. Your muscles just aren't ready yet,” Doctor Sato explains.

“They’re fine. We should move on.”

“Korra, you’re not ready.”

“I am ready!” you snap.

The doctor sighs softly and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. 

“I know you’re frustrated and I can see that your patience is wearing thin, but you’re not ready. Your body is telling you that it’s not ready yet if you’re still experiencing pain from these exercises. So let’s just finish this session and next week we’ll go over the new exercises.”

Your hands tighten into fists in frustration. “This is taking too long. I can still barely do anything and if I’m not better I’m going to miss too many matches. I’m on a time crunch and you don’t get that. I need to be better fast or this won’t matter,” you say frustrated. “So just show me the new exercises.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to show you something that could hurt you and set back your recovery.”

You stand up, shaking your head. “I’m leaving then.”

“Korra.”

You hear her voice, but keep walking out anyway.

* * *

“I thought you’d switched doctors,” Doctor Sato teases you as she closes the door of the examination room. You had skipped last week’s session, but felt guilty afterwards and came this week.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. Show me how you’re doing.”

You do the exercises and then wait as she examines your shoulder, her cold hands once again causing you to shiver.

“Sorry,” she apologizes.

“Your hands are always cold.”

“I know. Patients complain all the time,” she laughs. She then lets go of your shoulder and grabs a packet from the counter. “These are the new exercises and repetitions you’ll need to do,” she says as she hands it to you. “We’ll go over these today and I’ll answer any questions you have about them.”

“Okay.”

As you do the first new exercise, she clears her throat. “So how are you doing?”

You let out a little huff of air at her question. “Honestly, not great. I can’t do what I love. I can’t even do a lot of basic day-to-day things. It’s frustrating as hell.”

“I understand that you want to get back out there as soon as possible, but think about this. If you take your time recovering now and don’t push yourself past your limit, then you will get back to the court and be able to play without issue. If you don’t do this properly or push yourself harder than you should, then you could risk injuring yourself again. You may also have pain when you’re playing if you return and you're not fully healed, which isn’t the goal here. The goal is to get you better.”

“Yeah, I get that. I just… was having an off week that week.”

“It’s okay. If I couldn’t be doing what I love, I’d be grumpy too.”

You laugh and then wince when your arm moves a bit further than it should have. 

“Focus.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me. I’m not the one hurting myself.”

* * *

You worry your lower lip as Doctor Sato takes a good look at your shoulder. It had actually taken more than four months. Hitting just under six months of restrengthening your arm and getting it back to where it needed to be.

“How’s it look?”

The doctor’s hands run over your shoulder, slipping down to your bicep and lingering for a moment. “Good.” Her hands then leave you and she clasps them behind her back.

“So am I clear? Doctor’s seal of approval?”

She smiles softly at you and nods. “You’re clear. You can pick up that racket of yours and start training.

“Yes,” You say loudly as you pump a fist into the air. 

She laughs at your enthusiasm. “Just remember to ease yourself back into it. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

“I’ve been this patient so far, no need to rush it, right?”

“Guess old dogs can learn new tricks,” she teases you.

You hold your hand over your heart in mock pain. “I’m not even that old,” you laugh.

“I know. I’ve seen your file.”

“Um, well. I guess… thanks,” you stutter out.

“It was nothing. I’m just glad you can get back out on that court.”

“Yeah.” You stand and you’re unsure of what to do. Do you just leave? Is this goodbye for good? You hate to admit it, but you’d grown close to the doctor. Every time you were around her, you just felt lighter. You felt happier. And now it was over. 

“Good luck with your future matches,” she says as she opens the door for you.

“Thanks. For everything.” You take in her peridot eyes once more and smile softly at her. “Really, I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“You could have,” she says confidently.

“Maybe. But thanks anyway,” you thank again. “Bye.” You swallow the lump in your throat as you walk through the doorway and leave.

* * *

Your heart is pounding as you lean forward, swaying back and forth ready for your opponent to serve. As soon as she does, you push off and return the serve. You volley for two passes until she’s unable to return the ball to you, hitting the net instead.

Just one more point and then you’d be in the Olympics. Just one more point, you kept saying in your head. You bounce on the balls of your feet as the stadium goes quiet. You’d made a miraculous comeback, at least that’s what the sports experts called it. People had already given up on you after hearing of your injury, but somehow you were back and better than ever.

She serves, but vaults. The ball runner retrieves the ball and your opponent bounces the one she’s about to serve up and down. She then tosses it into the air and strikes it hard.

You leap into motion, returning the ball. The volley continues and with each pass back, you start inching closer and closer to the net. She spikes it hard, trying to get it past you. It’s almost an exact replica of the play that had hurt you. It’s different this time around. Your racket meets the ball and you barely swing, using the ball’s momentum to your advantage. It lofts over the opponent’s head and slowly falls. You watch as it bounces a second time, indicating that you’d won the point and the match. The crowd breaks out into cheering as you step to the net to shake your opponent’s hand. She nods at you, acknowledging your win and good play.

Once that’s done, you close your eyes, taking in the moment. Nine months ago you were writhing on the ground, crying out and thinking that your career was over. But now, now you were going to the Olympics. You were going to represent your country.

Something didn’t quite feel right though. Your heart sunk slightly as a pair of green eyes flashed before you. The memory of her soft hands, her gentle words. The memory of her encouragement and support. Her patience and vibrancy. Your mind went to her first. You wanted to tell her. To tell her how far you’d gotten. To thank her again because you could never thank her enough.

* * *

“How can I help you?” She’s a new receptionist and you’re surprised Katara isn’t there.

“Where’s Katara?”

“Oh, she’s on vacation. Should be back in a couple days.”

“Ah, okay.” You pause for a moment, but then realize the new woman is still waiting for you to say why you’re there. “Oh, um. I was wondering if Doctor Sato was here.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

You rub the back of your neck with your right hand. “Uh, no.”

“Well I can set one up for you. What’s it for?”

“It’s not really for…. Anything.”

The woman looks at you confused.

“I just wanted to talk to her.”

“Um.” The receptionist isn’t sure what to do as she looks at you. And you’re not sure what to say either.

“Korra?”

You look up and awkwardly wave.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hey, Opal,” you say to the nurse. “I was kind of hoping to see Doctor Sato. I know I didn’t make an appointment and she’s probably busy and-”

“Come with me.”

The receptionist gives you a look as Opal leads you through the doors and to the room that you had your sessions in when with Doctor Sato.

“I’ll go find her. She might be with a patient so it might be a while.”

“That’s fine.”

Opal smiles warmly at you as you take a seat on the examination table. You play with your hands as your feet kick out. You can’t help but feel nervous and jittery as time passes. With each second that the clock ticks, your heart seems to race more. You’ve run over what you’ve wanted to say hundreds of times now, but you’re still not sure if they’re the right words. 

Suddenly the door bursts open and Doctor Sato enters in a flurry. Her long hair whips back and forth from the high ponytail that she always wears. Her cheeks are flushed and it looks like she’s been running.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Her words rush out of her, each one filled with concern.

You raise a brow at her, confused.

“Did you hurt yourself? Your shoulder again?”

“Ohhhh,” you say once you get why she’s so flustered. “No. I’m fine.” You swing your arm back and forth to show her that you’re telling the truth.

“Oh, good,” she pants as she catches her breath. “Why, why are you here then?”

You take in a deep breath. She's asking why you’re here and it’s finally time to tell her. You let out your breath and scoot off the table and stand in front of her.

“I don’t know if you keep up with tennis,” you start. “But I was in a match recently.”

“The qualifiers. I saw you made it.”

You smile at the fact that she had kept up with you through tennis. “Yeah, that one. Anyway when I won my past matches, I always thought of my parents. I thought about how proud they’d be when I told them I won. Or if they were at the game, I thought about how proud their smiles would be when I look at them in the stands.”

“Okay.”

“But this match was different. I didn’t think of my parents.” You pause and try to compose yourself. “I, well, I thought of you. I thought about how badly I wanted to tell you that I’d won. That I’d made it. I wanted to see your smile. To hear you tell me that I’d done a good job. To tell you thank you again for everything that you’d done for me.”

Doctor Sato stares at you and your stomach flips. You can’t read her expression, so you keep going.

“I guess it made me realize how much I missed you. And I totally understand if you tell me to leave right now because I was just a patient to you and nothing more. But I needed to get this closure. I needed to let you know how I feel because if I didn’t I knew I’d regret it every day of my life. I just wanted you to know.”

You let out a heavy sigh. 

“And now that you do and it’s clear that you don’t feel the same way… I will be heading out now. Sorry to bother you at work. I know you’re busy.”

You walk past her and towards the door, but stop when you feel a hand grasp onto your wrist.

“You haven’t even let me say anything yet.”

You turn around and meet her gaze, a little bit of hope still left in you.

“I almost asked you on a date our last session, but I wasn’t sure how you felt. It also wouldn’t be professional of me,” Doctor Sato confesses. “But it’s pretty clear that we both felt it. Whatever ‘it’ was that was between us. And we both missed it as well,” she says with a soft smile. “I’m glad you came back.”

“So, um… Doctor Sato would you allow me the pleasure to take you out on a date?”

“First, you need to not be so formal. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak to me like that,” the doctor laughs. “Second, I would love to go on a date with you.” She suddenly leans close to you, her voice barely a whisper, “Third, my name’s Asami.”

“Asami,” you say reverently. Her name rolls off your tongue and sounds perfect. You had known her first name since the first session, but had never said it aloud until now. It was the first step over the boundary from patient and doctor, into new territory of an unknown relationship. The only thing certain is the fact that you both care for one another and are looking forward to where this takes you.

**Author's Note:**

> This one may get another part because the requester had said that a fluffy and smutty fic would be awesome. So I'm thinking of adding a second part that is fluffy and smutty... especially since this is pretty angsty overall. 
> 
> Also as another end note: A reason why 'love' means zero in tennis may be because "The only thing keeping a scoreless player on the court is the love of the game." Isn't that poetic and romantic?


End file.
